GPL patches *can* be used as they are not compiled into an application and can therefore be updated by the user, satisfying one aspect of the GPL. I handle this in PdParty by having the built in patches accessible by the user in the app’s Documents folder, so the user can modify them at will.

If you’re using a GPL patch as an abstraction, it’s *similar* to using a dynamic GPL library as far as I can tell. But I’m no lawyer...

On Apr 23, 2017, at 7:09 PM, pd-list-request@lists.iem.at wrote:

From: Matt Davey <hard.off@gmail.com mailto:hard.off@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [PD] best licence for pd-patches? Date: April 23, 2017 at 6:46:00 AM MDT To: martin brinkmann <mnb@martin-brinkmann.de mailto:mnb@martin-brinkmann.de> Cc: "pd-list@lists.iem.at mailto:pd-list@lists.iem.at" <pd-list@lists.iem.at mailto:pd-list@lists.iem.at>

i heard, and then read, that GPL patches CAN be run in closed source systems running libpd, etc.

it's just GPL externals that you can't use without sharing the code.

There seems to be a difference in licensing laws between patches and externals, because externals need to be compiled into the binary, but patches are more like "media" which runs on top of that.

I wish i could find the posts i read about that again....it did make it quite clear why there is that distinction.

Dan Wilcox @danomatika http://twitter.com/danomatika danomatika.com http://danomatika.com/ robotcowboy.com http://robotcowboy.com/